Edwin Santana “demonstrated a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of education that I have rarely seen even from seasoned Democratic office holders”

Yesterday, I was honored to represent the Edwin Santana for Congress – VA1 campaign at the monthly Hanover Democratic Committee meeting. Here’s (roughly) what I said:

“Edwin Santana is a Marine who is fed up with the lack of leadership in our district. He left the Marines in September 2016 and filed to run for Congress in January of 2017. So he has been in this since the beginning.

We all know that Rob Wittman is a coward who openly supports Trump. He may not act like our old friend Dave Brat, but he sure does vote like him. Wittman has voted to take away our healthcare, to privatize our schools, to end net neutrality, to pollute our air and waters, to give our tax dollars to the rich, to take away our reproductive rights, and to keep unsafe guns in our communities.

Edwin has real progressive policy answers to all of these. He will be a principled representative and a champion for the working families of the 1st district. As your congressman, Edwin will fight every day for single-payer healthcare, a strong
public education system, broadband internet access for all, a clean environment, a more fair economy, and an end to our culture of sexual harassment and acceptance of gun violence.

Edwin’s campaign has the profile, the energy, the grassroots organization, and the strategic know how needed to beat Rob Wittman in November. Rob is complacent but he hasn’t come
up against a campaign like this in his ten years in office.

It took me a while to choose which candidate I was supporting. Edwin asked me to sit down with him and talk about education policy—you all know that that’s my field. I looked at his education platform and a made a list of major progressive education policy ideas and then we got together and talked for a few hours. Edwin demonstrated a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of education that I have rarely seen even from seasoned Democratic office holders. Plus, when he didn’t know something, he knew what questions to ask, and he asked some hard questions, too, about the rationales behind the policy ideas. He gave me some
homework to do. I was immensely impressed.

Ultimately, I hope everyone gets out and votes on Tuesday and I thank all of the candidates for running. A competitive primary is a healthy primary and anyone running for office is doing a public service.